Samhain Blog Hop — Love in the Spirit World

I don’t have cats living with me any more (my husband is severely allergic to them). Or do I? Everyone who has lived with cats knows the feeling of a cat jumping onto the bed at night, walking around, and then settling in. Though I don’t have living cats any more, I still, very frequently, can feel cats jumping onto the bed and settling in. Do I have a ghost cat or two still living with me? I certainly hope so!

Likewise, I once heard my husband’s stepfather (who had passed away several years earlier) pacing around my office and using language that I, personally, feel I should not repeat in my blog. He seemed to be worrying that my husband was taking a rather disorganized approach to a trip we were planning — and expressed his frustration in language so colorful that I had frankly never heard that particular expression before.

Well, everyone expresses love in different ways.

The theme of this year’s Samhain blog hop is love, and if you’re thinking, “those crazy tarot readers got their holidays mixed up!”, I’m here to tell you that, with respect, I don’t think so. First of all, who doesn’t LOVE Halloween? But more importantly — this is the time of year when we most easily connect with the spirit world — and honestly, that connection is NOT about scaring the pants off us — fun as that might be — it’s about love.

Can you truly be separated from someone you love deeply — even by death?

Now this is where this post is going to get a little corny. But I don’t care — because I think these two songs each make a point. Because, when you think about it, there are two ways to reunite with someone you love who has died.

The first way is to connect with them in the spirit world — or in spirit, if you prefer. This doesn’t have to mean seeing or hearing ghosts (although it could). It could be a connection in a dream. Or it could be something as simple as writing letters to your loved one who has passed on. All those things you wanted to be able to say to that person? You still can. Put them in a letter. The heart is an efficient post office. Trust me on this.

My second totally corny song, to me, has reincarnation written all over it. Maybe you don’t believe in reincarnation. But haven’t you met people in your life who you know, without a doubt, that you knew before? The connections of the heart DO have a tendency to bring us back into contact with those we have loved in past lives — and we do recognize them, whether we realize it consciously or not. We recognize them, and in some cases, we come back again and again looking for them — because the attachment of the heart is that strong.

Maybe it’s spooky to think about connecting, again, with someone who has passed. But I don’t think so. Love does transcend death. Death doesn’t have the power to part us — or not for long.

As I write this, I’m thinking not only of people I know who have passed on, but also of clients who have come in hoping to find peace after the death of a loved one. The truth is, that yes, you can use tarot to find some measure of peace even after having your life torn apart in this way. And tarot can be a lovely, and gentle, way to work with the situation. But — you don’t NEED tarot for this. Because your loved ones are not separated from you. They are not. You might not feel their presence as strongly at some times as you do at other times. But they are there. Don’t worry about this.

How do I know? I could give you several answers to that question. But one answer is this. One of my grandmothers (and I was one of the lucky people who have more than just two!) died over the summer. She had come close to death before, because of her struggle with cancer. While Nana was in the hospital, there were times when she told my parents that she could see her entire family standing around her bed — her parents, grandparents, people who were no longer among the living. My parents, of course, thought her medication was affecting her brain. But if so, why did she only see family members who were dead? Moreover, Nana was lucid in every other way — right up to the end.

Sometimes it takes a grandchild to believe a grandparent. But my feeling is this. My grandparents were not ever what you would call flaky. They, all of them, had plenty of common sense. And if Nana says her dead parents came to visit her while she was sick, I see no reason not to believe her. It sounds just like something they would have done. And when someone who you know to be intelligent and down to earth tells you something that sounds a little flaky, my feeling is, I’m willing to trust that this person knows what they are talking about. Particularly when it’s a person who has lived nearly a century and has a lot more experience of the world than I do.

So what I’m trying to say is, this Halloween, this Samhain, remember this. The spirits are with us not to scare us (even though it may be fun to be scared, sometimes). They are with us because they love us, because we love them, and because the heart can accomplish amazing miracles that we are just beginning to understand.

These experiences can be disagreeable, quite the reverse of fun, but I believe loved ones will come if they can, at a time of crisis. However it is that this can happen, who cares. And I know what you mean about invisible cats. My cat is the only cat I’ve had, I have not as yet ever been bereaved of a cat, but for years, I’d feel the landing and treading of a ‘spook cat,’ on the bed, once while watching telly, in the early evening. My teenage daughter was lounging on there with me, chatting, felt it too, and got a fine fright. Sometimes I woke to feel it’s warmth in my arms as I lay on my side, but when I finally saw it, I saw only the outline of its ears, in bright neon blue.

Bonnie, Reincornyation? Not. Not at ALL corny. SUCH a resonant blog, and in zero ways corny. I love those two songs for very different reasons, and Christina Perri’s “A Thousand Years” which I originally discovered through The Piano Guys has remained on the top of my fave list giving me full-on slow, kelping, head nods and resonant tingles. I say all this as it is part of my story that you sparked with your grandmother’s wisdom of expression no matter how flaky her children felt it to be. Parents with grandparents often remind me that “a prophet has no honor in their own home”… though mostly with their children that’s true, as with my grandparents where even my parents would snicker at something they said late in years, I always laughed and poked my parents in the ribs (literally) and say, “Why does Nanny’s magic make you so uncomfortable that you snicker? Wouldn’t you rather laugh and smile with her magic?” Of course, Nanny would give them a free save and say, “OH boy is HE right! That deserves cookies. Why don’t you two go get him some. Bring enough for me, too We have things to talk about. Go’on now. Scoot.” We’d all then laugh, laugh and laugh to the point where, “Ok you 3, I guess I HAVE to go get the cookies.” lol Thanks for the living memories of loved ones that are blessings, Bonnie. Thanks for building a portal to those lost-in-time sanctuaries of living memories of loved ones… still lived by telling your love story. Have a Spooktacular Hallowe’en, BlogHop iNeighb!

Corny songs aside, I enjoyed your stories. I was also visited by my dad just after he passed away. I went to America for his funeral and was sleeping in his bed and I had the strongest feeling that he was in the room. It was in absolutely no way frightening, but was exactly the same as when I was little and I would know he was standing in the doorway to check on me before he locked up the house and went to bed himself. I simply lay there feeling that presence and went to sleep. I have never felt it again. It must surely have been his leavetaking.

Thank you for your comment and for sharing your story! I think when ghosts are people who we have known and loved, they are unlikely to be frightening…though I don’t know much about this topic. When I went to visit my parents after my grandmother died, they decided to put me in her bedroom, the room she died in, and asked me if that was okay. My answer was, “of course, I’m not afraid of Nana!” Because how could I be? It would be lovely to have seen her (though I didn’t).

Nope, not scary at all — at least not so far, not for me. But I am ready to stand corrected if anyone has had different experiences…I don’t know a lot about ghosts. I suspect that it’s harder to see what we are afraid of, so that provides a bit of self-protection against anything that might be scary.

Thank you for your lovely post. I identify with every word you wrote because I connect very much with my great grandmother. I was her favourite great grandchild who could do no wrong you see…haha..And even when my grand dad whom I love to bits passed away, I couldn’t quite connect with him but I still connected with great granny and she died like 25-30 years ago maybe? It is weird. Thank you for reminding me though that I must be too busy complaining about everything in life to great granny that I failed to feel grand dad around me holding my hand through hard times. This blog post was a poignant reminder that my loved ones who have passed on will always be around me.

This is a beautiful post, thank you for posting and for the music 🙂
I never thought of thinking of the grand-parents I never knew in the way you describe. I hardly knew them, but I would have loved to have known their parents I think 🙂

Bonnie, what a lovely post! Everything you wrote here I have experienced….my mom who was one of the most logical ‘nonspiritual’ people, but after her transition she has been amazing!!! My mom, one year or so before she even was in the transitioning process saw her parents many times appear to her, but they never said anything…that is until she was closer to transitioning…then, they communicated with her and the closer to her time in the physical her room became fuller and fuller of those waiting to help her =) It was an amazing experience. Since her death/transition…I have had many experiences of her being around me as well as my dad and other family members and what was interesting to me is that although their communication may be different now their personalities remain the same for the most part lol…..It is amazing! Again, thank you for this well-written post….it really speaks to my heart ❤ Hugs, sharon